Of course that type of shootout will never happen. Too much money on the line for the manufacturers. Plus the possibility that some of these very expensive products will be exposed as not performing as well as many either think or expect them too. It is funny that we can have a shootout of the best flat panel TVs for the past 10 years but when it comes to audio, it will never happen.
Actually, a high end shoot-out did happen at Munich High End in 2004. It was sponsored by a German audio magazine. Here is the description from audiogon.
"Worlds’ Best High End Loudspeaker Competition/Demonstration?
Just got back from the Munich High End show, where I heard the most amazing demonstration. A comparison under identical conditions of the following loudspekers; Thiel CS 7.2, Sonus Faber Stradivari Homage, Audio Physic Kronos, Focal-JM Labs Grand Utopia Be, Wilson Audio Alexandria X-2 and TAD-1 (never heard of this one either, go to www.tadaudio.com for further information). This was a group demonstration in front of approximately 120 show attendees at a time, with an audience vote at the end of the final demonstration. I very much doubt anyone in the USA would dare do this type of demonstration at a HiFi show for fear of litigation! This is how it was done.
The demonstration was organized by Stereoplay, a German HiFi magazine. The room was approximately 8m x 30m x 3.5m (approximately 26 ft wide, 66 ft long, 11 ft high. The room had been specially acoustically treated with sound absorbers (sounded fine to me). Each set of speaker had been optimized for room placement before the demonstration (tape marks on the floor). Each set of speakers was auditioned in isolation; the other speakers were kept outside the demonstration room. All speakers were mounted on castors to facilitate moving in and out of the demonstration room (for practical purposes they were kept on the castors for the demonstration). Three pieces of music was played on each set of speakers; a SACD, LP and regular CD. I do not know the names of the pieces (I don’t speak German, so I couldn’t understand what was being said at the demonstration introduction). However, the SACD was Jazz, CD classical and the CD Latin. All recording were of demonstration caliber and full range recording. I believe sound levels had been previously set to enable each set of loudspeakers to play at exactly the same level. Equipment included a Viola Cadenza pre-amp, Pass XA160 power amp, Accuphase DP-85 CD/SACD player, Laufwerk TT (German, high end). All hooked together with some very impressive looking power cables, interconnects and speaker cable (read, very expensive looking). In summary, IMHO, the speakers were being demonstrated under the best conditions possible, albeit with approximately 120 people in a very large room. The overall demonstration took approximately 1 hour. Time between demonstrations was kept relatively short due to some fancy loudspeaker movement and team work.
How did they sound? Fantastic, every single loudspeaker! Mind you, at this price, so they should! I don’t have the ability to describe how each speaker sounded, remember this is a comparative demonstration.
And the winner is? Based on a show of hands after the final demonstration (the demonstration was done in the same order I listed the speakers), the Wilson Audio Alexandria X-2 was a clear winner. I think they are the most expensive speakers demonstrated. I personally found the TAD-1s were also excellent.
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